Bountyhunter Station – CRT Driven Diegetic UI System

The Bountyhunter Station was created as a fully interactive diegetic user interface for our ongoing sci-fi western game project.

Rather than relying on traditional menus, the station acts as an in-world hub where players can select missions, manage equipment, spend progression points, and access game settings. The goal was to create a system that feels physically present inside the world while reinforcing the retro-futuristic identity of the game's universe.

The design draws inspiration from classic CRT technology, industrial communication equipment, and retro sci-fi aesthetics found in productions such as Alien: Isolation, Firefly, and various retro sci-fi conecpt electronic devices. Instead of building a clean and futuristic interface, I wanted the station to feel old, heavily used, repaired countless times, and still somehow operational on the fringes of civilized space.

The asset was created using a mid-poly workflow. Since the station serves as a central gameplay element that players interact with frequently and at close range, many high-poly details were intentionally preserved rather than aggressively optimized away. The asset was continuously tested inside Unreal Engine and runs comfortably above 120 FPS while maintaining a high level of visual fidelity.

A major focus of this project was the monitor technology itself. Every screen was designed individually and built around custom animated flipbooks, CRT-inspired typography, and shader effects developed specifically for this asset. The monitor system combines animated scanlines, curvature distortion, vignette effects, refresh sweeps, emissive variation, bloom techniques, and custom flipbook animations to recreate the appearance of aging cathode ray displays.

To further strengthen the illusion of authentic CRT screens, the interfaces were designed using IBM Plex Mono and carefully tuned colour palettes. Additional blur and glow layers were introduced to simulate phosphor light bleeding and the imperfect behaviour of older display technologies.

The surrounding scene was used as an opportunity for environmental storytelling. Weapons, bounty posters, notes, data cartridges, and other props hint at the life of a travelling bounty hunter operating on the edge of a lawless frontier. Many of these assets are fully game-ready props that also appear elsewhere throughout the project.

SPECIAL FOCUS
Diegetic UI Design | CRT Simulation | Shader Development | Environmental Storytelling | Real-Time Asset Creation

Since the asset is frequently viewed at close range, additional geometry was retained to preserve silhouette quality and support the CRT-inspired design language. The final asset was continuously tested in Unreal Engine and performs above 120 FPS.

The station was modeled in Autodesk Maya using a modular hard-surface workflow. The design evolved from a collection of retro communication devices, radar systems, CRT televisions, and industrial equipment.

A significant amount of time was spent researching authentic CRT display behaviour and typography. Additional glow layers and blur techniques were used to simulate phosphor light bleeding commonly found on older displays.

All monitor animations were created manually in Photoshop using a frame-by-frame workflow. These flipbooks are played directly inside Unreal Engine materials, allowing for lightweight animated interfaces without requiring video playback.

To recreate the appearance of classic cathode ray tube displays, a custom HLSL-based curvature function was implemented directly inside Unreal Engine.

A custom scanline sweep was developed to simulate the refresh behaviour of older displays. The moving scanline introduces subtle motion and visual noise, helping the monitors feel alive even when displaying static content.

A custom vignette effect darkens the edges of the display and reinforces the illusion of a curved CRT screen. Combined with bloom and emissive effects, this helps create a more authentic analog display appearance.

Full shader overview.